Leopard 1 Driver Training Cabs in Canada

[Mike Cecil]

Gents,

In Michael McNorgan's 'The Leopard in Canadian Service', there are a couple of images of the Driver Training Cab on Canadian Leopard C1 tanks, but nowhere in the book (or elsewhere for that matter) can I find the total number of Driver Training Cabs purchased/acquired by Canada.

Can any of our Canadian members enlighten me, please?

Thanks

Mike

[Ed Storey]

My records show ECC 116102 Leopard C1 modified to accept Drivers Training Cab - in 1995, Canada held 37.

[Robin Craig]

Ed,

Interesting that it is such a high number. I am, for my sins active on a FB group that believe it is a smaller number, all ex armoured corps types. Their anecdotal numbers peg at around 8 or less.

Their suggestion was that the number of greenhouses matched the number of turrets on the indoor miniature range as the hulls that gave up their turrets were the ones converted with the greenhouses.

This is interesting.

[Ed Storey]

To be honest so was I, although the list shows CFB Gagetown alone having 13.

[James P]

Something seems WAY off with the numbers, I never saw 13 cabs in Gagetown in the Armour School. Six seems to be the number stuck in my head, a regular gun tank would see the turret removed and used as a turret in the Indoor Miniature Range and the hull get cabbed. As for holding 37 cabs in the supply system , wow, that is a crazy number as Canada just plain did not buy all that many tanks to justify that number of trainer cabs. But that said the CF procurement system is a sick joke so who knows..........

[Grant Bowker]

Did the modification to accept the training cab in any way limit the use of the tank in the normal role with the turret? If the (modified) base tank hull was equally usable with either training cab or turret, it is possible that in a burst of enthusiasm it was decided to modify several times as many hulls as there were training cabs so that it would only be necessary to ship the driver training cab and not the entire tank to train in different locations.
This suggestion is made without any actual knowledge of the driver training adaptation of the Leopard to offer a possible explanation of what otherwise sounds illogical.